Recently I revisited a Mild Ale that I did a few years ago for Spring War, the reason for doing this was that I was able to get my hands on some Mild Malt from the US which was previously unavailable. When brewed originally this beer used Australian Ale malt which meant that I had to mash the grain rather warm to maintain body and mouth feel, which left the beer rather cloying and not as sessionable as I would have liked. Now with access to Mild Malt I was able to mash the grain a bit cooler and maintain the body and mouth feel due to the higher protean in the malt.

The reason for originally brewing this beer was that at multi day SCA events we wanted to drink beer during the day and still enjoy ourselves. This I have found to be a medieval concept called small ale which is a topic I will expand on at a later date. While this beer is not based on a period recipie it is a solution to a period problem ie, I need to drink but I cannot get drunk. Also this beer tastes better cool than cold so it does not need to be iced an advantege at a multi day event.

The Beer

OG – 1.035 FG – 1.008

ABV – 3.5% IBU – 25

Colour – TBA

Grain Bill given in percentage of grain.

Mild Malt 85%

Medium Crystal 10%

Porter Malt 3%

Black Malt 2%

Mashed for 90 Mins at 66°C. Boiled for 90 Min adding 25 IBU’s worth of Brewers Gold and finishing off with 1/2G a litre of East Kent Golding’s at 10 Min with a Wirlfloc tablet at the same time. Fermented with WLP002 Essex Ale yeast.

What I have Learnt.

One thing I have encountered with this is that I had to warm my brew up. Growing up in Newcastle, NSW I have allways had to cool my beer down now having moved to Canberra, ACT my shed is currently under 16 degrees I have had to warm my beer up to get it to ferment.